The 2017 breeding season delivered some excellent news for the three native birds of prey that have been released and reintroduced into Ireland in recent decades. The Golden Eagle Trust (GET) was established in 1999 to try to restore and enhance our island’s native wildlife. As a wildlife charity, the GET spearheaded the return of Golden Eagles, White-tailed Eagles and Red kites in partnership with the National Parks and Wildlife Service and with vital support…

Star has been on the move over much of the winter with periods of some weeks when he settles down near one of the Midland’s loughs, a far cry from his former breeding site in south-west Connemara. As the map shows Star hasn’t been back ‘home’ to Connemara since September 2015. In late autumn, up to early-mid Oct 2015 Star was in the north-west flitting between Roscommon, east Mayo and north-east Galway (red track on…

Breeding: -Thirteen pairs held territory in Ireland in 2015 (Fig. 1). At least nine pairs built nests and eight pairs laid eggs. For the first year since breeding began in 2012 more than one pair successfully fledged chicks: five pairs hatched chicks across four counties with four of these pairs fledging a single chick each (Table 1). Fig. 1 Growth in number of WTSE breeding and non-breeding pairs in RoI. One WTSE pair (CE01) nested…

Since fledging in mid July, Cealtra, the 2015 young female White-tailed Sea Eagle has been gradually finding her wings. As you probably know she is one of 4 sea eagle chicks fledged this year from nests in the wild in Clare, Kerry and Galway (sadly a 5th hatched at Glengarriff in west Cork didn’t make it). All 4 chicks are now flying about and gaining much needed experience of their environment while still, in most…

The first White-tailed Sea Eagle nests in Co. Kerry in over 100 years have successfully fledged chicks in 2015! Two pairs, one in Killarney National Park and the other on the Beara peninsula near Kenmare, fledged single chicks at each nest. This was the third attempt to successfully raise a chick by the Killarney pair while the Beara pair succeeded on their first attempt. Since fledging, the Killarney chick has been closely followed and fed…